Look to history, and when your heart saddens at the fact that liberty never yet was lasting in any corner of the world, and in any age, you will find the key of it in the gloomy truth that all who were yet free regarded liberty as their privilege, instead of regarding it as a principle. The nature of every privilege is exclusiveness, that of a principle is communicative. Liberty is a principle, -- its community is its security is its security, -- exclusiveness is its doom. What is aristocracy? It is exclusive liberty; it is privilege; and aristocracy is doomed, because it is contrary to the destiny and welfare of man. A privilege can never be lasting. Liberty restricted to one nation never can be sure. You may say "We are the prophets of God;" but you shall not say, "God is only our God." --- Louis Kossuth
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